Proprioception: Bilateral inputs first

The present study focused on assessing whether the effects of muscle fatigue on joint position sense are dependent upon the unilateral or bilateral nature of proprioceptive inputs. To this aim, a group of young adults performed an active contralateral concurrent ankle matching task in two conditions of support of the reference limb (active vs. passive) and two conditions of fatigue of the indicator limb (no fatigue vs. fatigue). In the absence of muscle fatigue, results failed to evidence significant difference of matching errors between the active and passive conditions of support. However, in the context of muscle fatigue, increased matching errors were observed in active but not passive condition of support. The deleterious effects of muscle fatigue on joint position sense were therefore dependent upon the laterality of the proprioceptive inputs related to muscle contraction. These results suggested that sensory weighting for proprioception gives priority to inputs available bilaterally over the ones available in a single limb only.

131Highlights► Proprioceptive weighting gives priority to bilateral over unilateral inputs. ► The fatigue effect is stronger in bilateral muscle contractions. ► Effects of muscle fatigue are weaker in passive relative to active joint position sense.